British Empire at its territorial peak - Vivid Maps (2024)
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The British Empire began with England’s overseas settlements and trading posts between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest Empire in history. By 1913 the British Empire covered 35.5 million sq km or 13.7 million sq mi (24 percent of the planets’ total land area). In 1920, the Empire’s population was over 413 million people (23% of the world population).
British Empire at its territorial peak (1921)
The British Empire, at its territorial peak, covered nearly the same surface area as the Moon.
The map below shows countries of the British Empire drawn on a uniform scale of 1:60,000,000
Below the 1910 propaganda map showcasing oversized flags of British colonies, this map artificially increases the apparent influence and presence of the British Empire.
The flags of a free empire, showing the emblems of British power throughout the world
“This picture helps us to understand the wonderful way in which the British Empire is established throughout the world. But it helps us to realise something more. The flag that flies over the British Isles in the centre of the picture is the Union Jack, under which no slave can breathe; and it is a fine thing, of which we may be rightly proud, that the sun never sets upon the Union Jack. But the flags that wave over other parts of the empire have all another sign stamped on the Union Jack, which means generally that these places, though they are loyal to the British flag, have a nationality or government of their own. Great Britain has built up a great empire, because, wherever her influence has gone, she has planted the seeds of freedom, and because, as soon as a British colony is able to govern itself, the power to govern is given to it. So that the separate flags mean that the places over which they fly are separate colonies, under the protection of the British flag.”
“It is not possible to show all parts of the empire or all the flags in their proper places, and it should be carefully noted that the actual empire, marked red, is represented on this map by the flag-staff and not by the flag itself. The flags have their staffs fixed into t ie places to which they belong so that it is the place where the flag-staff is fixed that belongs to the British Empire. Many small places have flags that are not shown in this map, and in the cases of Canada and Australia, only the federal flags are shown, the flags of the separate parts being along the top and bottom. In many other cases, also, where flags cannot be put in their proper position in such a small space as this, the flags are shown along the borders of the map. The colours of the emblems are not given here, and some of the emblems are shown much larger on the flag than they really are. Some of them are explained briefly in notes appearing on page 1118.”
Here is a visualization of the territorial evolution of the British Empire.
Animated map of the British empire’s rise and fall
Below is a more detailed map of the territorial evolution of the country through time.
Here is the map created by Reddit user alectprasad, showing countries that gained independence from the United Kingdoms and the years
British Colonies in Africa
Britain Empire had numerous colonies in Africa:
In West Africa – Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Southern Cameroon, and Sierra Leone.
In East Africa – Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zanzibar (Tanzania).
In South Africa – Botswana, Northern (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Lesotho, Nyasaland (Malawi), South Africa, Swaziland.
Moreover, Sudan, previously known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, was jointly ruled by Britain’s Empire and Egypt because they had colonized it.
In 1651, England established its first colony in Africa. A period of lower-level expansion occurred until the 19th century, after which Britain rapidly developed its colonies in the region. The colonial era finally ends in 1980 after its last colony gains independence.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the U.S. and Germany had begun to confront Britain’s economic leadership.
In WWII, Britain’s colonies in Asia were controlled by Japan. Despite Great Britain and its allies’ final victory, the destruction of British influence helped stimulate the Empire’s decay.
By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread.
The size of the British Empire – the amount of land and number of people under British rule – changed in size over the years. At its height in 1922, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen, covering around a quarter of Earth's land surface and ruling over 458 million people.
From the 16th to the 20th centuries, the British Empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1920 to over 35,500,000 km2 (13,700,000 sq mi), the largest empire in the world. In terms of population, on the eve of World War II, Britain and her colonial possessions totaled 500 million inhabitants.
It's a far cry from the days when the sun never set on the Empire: In 1921, at the empire's peak, the British ruled around a quarter of the land on Earth.
Britain had an extremely vast empire during the heyday of colonialism. The saying “The Empire on which the sun never sets” has been used to explain the vastness of the British Empire. Between the 18th and 20th century, the British Empire acquired more territories making it the largest empire in history.
At one point in time the British Empire was bigger than the Roman Empire. It was, and still is, the largest empire to have ever existed in human history. This is by all records and in all metrics — land mass, population, etc. This includes, arguably, the British Empire's greatest gift to the world, America itself.
19th century Britain was the world's richest and most advanced economy, while 19th century Ireland experienced the worst famine in Europe in that century. Real GDP per person almost doubled in the 90 years between 1780 and 1870, when it reached $3263 per capita.
At its zenith, the British Empire was the largest empire in history, governing over a quarter of the world's land area. It was said that the sun never set on the British Empire, highlighting its global span.
The top landowners include the sovereign, the Crown Estate, and Hugh Grosvenor 7th Duke of Westminster. The crown estate owns more acres in the UK than makes up the entire nation of Luxembourg. Royalty and nobility in the top 50 control 3% of the entire UK.
The British Empire may not have been contiguous, but it beats the Mongols in terms of land mass under its control. "It was so massive that we almost struggle to comprehend it today," said Bommas.
As of 2024, there are 15 Commonwealth realms: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom.
British ruled as the strongest and largest political power in India from 1802 December to August 1947 - roughly 145 years. But British existed as a major political power in India (if not paramount) since 1757 with their conquest of Eastern India after Battle of Plassey in 1757.
In 1913, 412 million people lived under the control of the British Empire, 23 percent of the world's population at that time. It remains the largest empire in human history and at the peak of its power in 1920, it covered an astonishing 13.71 million square miles - that's close to a quarter of the world's land area.
It's still here. It never truely went away, it just loosened the reins and allowed countries to govern themselves, and those who wanted to leave are allowed to leave, and they did so.
There are 14 UK Overseas Territories (OT) across the globe, of which ten are permanently inhabited by British nationals. All the Territories have historic links to the UK and, together with the UK and Crown Dependencies like Jersey and Guernsey, form one undivided realm where the King is sovereign.
At this point, there was truth in the saying that the Sun never set on the British Empire. The British Empire was at its largest in 1919, after Britain acquired Germany's East and West African colonies and Samoa in the Treaty of Versailles, which marked the end of the First World War, 1914–18.
Both wars left Britain weakened and less interested in its empire. Although Great Britain emerged as one of the victors of World War II, it had been economically devastated by the conflict. The British Empire gradually gave way to the Commonwealth.
Nevertheless, the Empire grew, mostly as a by-product of the drive to secure free trade, protect the existing empire, and due to expansionist impulses in the colonies themselves; indeed, very often the British government had little control over events in the colonies, and annexation was always seen as a last resort.
With an empire that was constantly expanding, Great Britain needed a strong and effective system of government. On the eve of the American Revolution, this system was a constitutional monarchy, in which both a monarch — in this case a king — and a legislative body, or Parliament, jointly managed the Empire.
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